


Sing like a Summer's bird

by Milaley



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Study, F/M, Family, Feels, Love, Love is complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 13:09:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milaley/pseuds/Milaley
Summary: Summer always loved a bit too quick, a bit too deeply. She always had too much love stored in a too small body. So why stop now. Why not give away what she can and think about it later.Summer and Qrow hook up in their third year at Beacon, the aftermath isn't always easy





	Sing like a Summer's bird

**Author's Note:**

> Trust me to write a character study on a character no one knows basically anything about beyond the basics. to be honest this mostly started as a pwp but then gained a lot of plot and lost a lot of porn. 
> 
> For those who don't know, I'm not a native English speaker and I'm dyslexic so though this has been spellchecked to the moon and back again, some words always tend to sneak through, just as a fair warning.

Summer is not sure of how it starts. She's always had too much love stored inside her small body. She always loved her family, her friends, her teammates. And she always had an eye on Qrow. He was charming, snarky and friendly and Summer could not deny that she found him attractive. So yeah... Too much love in a too small body.

It had been quite easy to hide, after all, she treated all her friends with affection so who would notice if she treated her partner extra affectionate. They were close after all. Had each other’s backs in battle and everywhere else. No one would suspect anything. Right?

Simply having him beside her was enough, right? Of course, she dreamt of more, wished for SOMETHING but he surely would never see her like this after all he had half of the female and a good portion of the male student population pining for him. So why should he notice her?

That's why it came as such a surprise when he kissed her.

It’s during their third year at Beacon.

The Team has just come back from a Week-long Training mission, Tai is off visiting his family for the weekend, Raven is (once again) mysteriously nowhere to be found (She does that from time to time. Disappearing for a few days and then reappearing and acting as if nothing ever happened. Simply stepping through a Portal close to one of her teammates without giving any explanation of what might have happened and where she had been the time she had been gone. Summer knows that Qrow knows where his twin sister runs off to, Summer also knows that Qrow knows that she knows that he knows about his sister’s whereabouts, but they've come to the silent agreement that sometimes it's better for everyone involved when some things simply stay the way they are right now)

So, Summer and Qrow are alone in the library finishing their mission report and Qrow is talking, dramatizing his fight with an Ursa major, waving his hands around and Summer is watching him talk with her chin rested on her hands and all she can think is “cute”. She's pretty sure she's smiling silly but there's no one around to see them since it's late in the afternoon, and her partner is occupied with telling her about the way he had tricked the grimm into letting down its guard, so he probably won't notice either.

 

Summer has never been more wrong.

Because suddenly Qrow stops talking and LOOKS at her and Summer fruitlessly tries to wipe the grin from of her face. And then a grin slowly spreads on Qrow's face.

And he leans down.

And kisses her right on the corner of Summer's mouth.

 

And just like that Summer's brain shuts itself off and goes into overdrive at the same time.

Oh. Ok, that is new.

Summer had always been a bit too weird, a bit too passionate about fighting. A bit too driven. Too much fight and energy and will to do good, to change the world. Too much to not stick out. A little girl with the courage to fight monsters, running around with that white hood of hers, picking fights and standing up to others. No wonder that the first real friends she made were at Beacon. No wonder the other kids avoided her for most of her adolescent years. 

She had never been kissed, never minded that fact, didn’t know any better. It had just been how things where. The Sun rose in the morning, the moon at night, water is wet, Summer was unkissed. A simple fact. It had just been what was normal.

No, she never not in a million years would have thought something even close to this could ever happen to her.

Summer looks up at her partner “I… err… uh… you just made me completely lose my train of thought…” she says in a voice that’s barely more than a whisper.

Qrow’s grin is a bright thing, joyful, a bit mischievous with a touch of relief clearly visible on his face. “in a bad way?”

Summer swallows “no, no. in a good way.”

“ok, well maybe this will help you get your thoughts back on track”

And then Qrow leans back in and captures her mouth with his and oh that is just so much better, making her head shut up and somehow get louder and more fanatic at the same time.

His lips are soft and the stubble of his beard scratchy making her lips tingle in a very pleasant way. Somewhere in the part of Summer's brain that is not occupied with kissing Qrow back, something is screaming “oh my gods this is happening, this is really happening, how is this happening, why is this happening, this must be an illusion, a very good and wonderful and heartbreaking illusion”

Summer just closes her eyes and decides to enjoy it while it lasts.

When they separate it feels like he just took her breath away. Summer blinks a few times.

Somehow during all of this, her arms had wrapped themselves around Qrow’s neck and his hands had found their way onto her hips. She’s definitely not complaining though.

“I want to kiss you some more!” he breathes.

“Me too but maybe…” Summer clears her breath “maybe we should do this somewhere else that’s not the library” she still feels out of breath and slightly dizzy. But in the most wonderful spectacular way.

No, definitely not complaining.

They quickly pack their bags and then Qrow holds out his hand, the question clear on his face.

Summer lays her hand in the bigger hands of her partner “ok” she whispers. It almost feels as if Qrow has somehow permanently stolen part of her breath and probably also a part of her too big heart. And she’s not sure if she even wants it back!

They walk to their dorm room in silence. Summer feels like a ball of nervous energy, nothing new but normally that nervous energy is directed towards wanting to fight, wanting to run around and sink the blade of her weapon into the flesh of the nearest grim. Now though all she wants to do is to kiss Qrow again.

It is strange and new and exciting and a bit scary. Summer doesn’t think she wants it to stop.

Qrow pulls her close, wraps his arms around her waist, right hand gripping her hip. All Summer can do is think “strong” and throw her arms around his shoulders and pull him down into a heated kiss. It feels good, she could get addicted to the feeling of her partner kissing her.

And then he walks them back to his bed, sits and pulls her down into his lab.

Ok, that, that is also quite nice.

They keep on kissing, Qrow’s hands appear to be everywhere, stroking her back, gripping her ass and touching the side of her boobs. Summer tries to keep on giving as good as she gets. Kissing back with desperation, hands on his back. she feels clumsy, inexperienced, insecure off if what she’s doing is the right thing but at the same time unwilling to stop doing it.

People say that in retro perspective some things are clearer but in this case, Summer doubts that because at some point she ended up on her back with Qrow on top of her and at some point, they both lost all of their clothes. She feels dazed in the best way possible and then Qrow’s head is between her legs.

Summer throws her head back, breath hitching. ok, that feels good, definitely feels good. Her breath comes out in small and hot puffs and then he crawls up her body, to kiss her once again

“can I put it in?” Qrow asks and Summer only nods because yes please and because speaking somehow seems too much of a hazard right now when she could do something more sensible with her lips right now like kissing. Yes. Kissing seems like a good idea. She pulls Qrow down into another kiss.

And then Qrow is in her and Summer lets her head fall back, lets herself simply FEEL.

She comes with his weight on her body and his kisses on her lips. Qrow follows soon after, finishing on her belly, panting hard into the crook of her neck.

Summer feels almost giddy with joy. It feels good, so so so impossibly good. Qrow collapses onto her and pulls her into another breathtaking kiss.

They fall asleep like this not long after.

 

They don’t really talk about it the next morning, somehow set on carrying on as if nothing happened, as if nothing changed when in fact it feels like everything has. Summer goes to shower and when she returns to their shared room, Qrow is sitting on his bed, fully clothed and he looks up at her with an almost vulnerable look on his face “are we ok?” he asks, and Summer says yes. And that’s it.

 

Sometimes Summer thinks back to the day at the library when Qrow kissed her, and when she does the fells as if he took her breath away with that first kiss and gave only a part of it back to keep the rest of it as a keepsake for bad times or something. Maybe that’s because they never really talk about what happened that afternoon, that night. Maybe it’s because they try to move on as if nothing happened. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Because in the end it never goes completely away, that feeling of longing for just another kiss. But then again Summer has always loved a bit too deep, a bit too intense so why stop now, right?

They graduate beacon with mostly flying colors and then start working under Ozpin. Summer loves her team. Loves them with all her heart. She’s incredibly overjoyed when she learns of Raven’s pregnancy. The other woman had always been for her something like a sister, so she sees herself as an aunt. But Raven starts to change soon after, draws herself away from the rest of her team.

“It sometimes breaks my heart you know?” Tai confides to her one night “It feels like I’m losing her. What if I’m losing her Summer? But then again I fear it’s already too late to convince her to stay”

Summer asks Qrow if he knows what’s up with his sister and all she get’s back from him is a very, very sad look on his face and an “I don’t know but whatever it is it’s already too late”

And then Yang is born, and Summer loves her from the first second, she sets her eyes on the little blond bundle of energy. Tai places her in Summer's arms when she visits them in the hospital the day after Yang’s birth. “want to be her godmother?” he asks, and Summer can only nod, rendered speechless by the soft weight of that baby in her arms.

Raven disappears three days after her daughter is born.

Summer cries and screams into the wind. She curses and flails her arms against nothingness hoping against reality that maybe, just maybe one of Raven’s portals will open and she’ll step out unharmed and just return to them like she had done so many times before.

Qrow goes looking her two days after her disappearance and Summer goes to Tai to help him with Yang.

She tries to pretend that she can’t hear him sobbing into his pillow at night. She fails.

They grow closer.

And then two weeks after Raven's departure, a portal opens in front of Summer but instead of her teammate/friend/honorable sister/mother of her goddaughter stepping through it, it’s her partner Qrow who staggers through it. Bleeding slightly from a cut on his forehead, bruised cheekbones and arm bent in an angle that simply cannot be healthy or natural.

He falls into Summer's arms.

“She told me not to look for her, said that she doesn’t want us to find her.” Is all he says before passing out.

Summer carries him back to the cottage their team shares. The cottage her, Tai and little Yang had been living in the past two weeks.

The cabin that had once been the base for their team’s missions and endeavors. The place they all used to return to. Now it appears that one of them will never do so again, and not by force, but by choice.

It hurts. She wants to hate Raven for what she did to them. For what she did to her friends, her partner, her brother, and her daughter. She tries to hate her.

For the first time, Summer tries to cut out a part of that love she shares for her friends and family out of her heart. It doesn’t work.

Maybe she’s foolish, maybe naïve and maybe both but somehow it appears that while to her loving someone is as easy as breathing, stopping to love a person is close to impossible. And that hurts. So, Summer channels all the love she normally would give to her friend into her friend’s daughter. She smiles at Yang, plays with her, feels and changes her.

 

And over the days and weeks and months, she spends with Yang and Tai, her and Tai grow closer and closer and closer.

Loving had always been easy for Summer.

And it appears that Tai is a bit more like her than she’d thought.

Yang’s first word is “Mama”. And it’s not directed at Raven. No. it’s directed at her, at Summer.

It happens at their kitchen table. Yang is in her highchair and Summer is trying to feed her some applesauce for breakfast. And Yang looks at her with those big lilac eyes and blinks and then the word drops out of her mouth. Summer stops moving the second she hears it and at the other end of the table, Tai and Qrow immediately stop their conversation.

Summer turns to them arms raised almost apologetic “I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention…”

“No!” Tai says and the look on his face puzzles Summer “no it’s ok! If anyone should have the title, I guess it should be you.”

But he looks up at her with big eyes a bit like he’s seeing her for the first time.

They kiss for the first time a month later.

 

Ruby is a surprise, a bit of an accident but less so then Yang had been. She’s wonderful though. A wonderful accident.

Qrow visits them at the hospital, Yang is napping at her feet, Tai asleep in the chair next to her bed and little Ruby is squealing in her arms. Their eyes meet across the room and for the first time in a long time Summer sees that look on his face, that look he gave her the day after library incident. A mixture of longing and hurt and something akin to self-defense - maybe acceptance?

The meaning is clear. His feelings are still somehow there, just like the strange longing to feel his lips on hers just one more time is strangely persistent.

But it will never ever happen. That too is clear.

So, Summer smiles at him, exhausted and happy and maybe a bit sad. And Qrow smiles back at her, happy and also a bit sad. It feels a bit like a goodbye to a “what could have been them”

Two kids are double, maybe triple the work of one. Tai takes up teaching at signal so that Summer can go back to the battlefield where they both know that she belongs.

Yang never learns that she’s not her biological mother and Tai wants it to stay that way until Yang is old enough to understand. Summer thinks he’s just scared she’ll go looking for Raven and come back scarred and hurt.

As far as she’s concerned, she has two daughters, one by blood and both by choice.

Two daughters and one husband in all but paperwork.

And she loves them deeply and with all her heart.

She never wants to leave them.

 

But sometimes that choice is taken from you.

 

Summer is leaning against a tree, her white cloak bloodied and torn. She’s dying, and she knows it. It hurts. Breathing hurts, that wound in her stomach hurts, the thought of never seeing her daughters, her family again, of never kissing her daughters’ foreheads when she says them goodnight hurts. The thought of never getting to hug and kiss and lie with Tai Hurts. The old longing of kissing Qrow hurts now more than ever. Because now that door will close forever.

 

She wants to call her family, wants to tell her team that she’s sorry, wants to tell Raven that she forgives her for leaving. Wants to see her children grow up, wants to help her little Ruby understand the burden that comes with having silver eyes.

So many possibilities, so much potential lost.

 

Summer closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them it’s to a frantic hand shaking her shoulder and Qrow’s worried Face right there in front of hers.

“-mmer! Summer please don’t leave! You can’t just leave me! please! I’m so so so sorry”

Summer smiles sadly and leans into the hand that cups her cheek

“Qrow,” she whispers, “it’s not your fault, will you tell my Tai and Ruby and Yang that I love them?”

“Summer. No this isn’t the end, this can’t be it! Don’t talk like that!”

“Shh… it’s ok.” Summer murmurs and a weak laugh leaves her lips. It hurts. Laughing hurts now. Huh, who would have thought…

“It’s not Summer, it’s really not!”

“I know it’s not. But you’re here so it’s a bit better now. Will you kiss me one last time? I never stopped loving you, you know? I always wondered how it would feel to kiss you just one more time.”

The last thing Summer feels are her partner’s Lips against hers.

**Author's Note:**

> so I hope you liked it, please tell me if you did :)  
> (also I'm sorry for the sad ending, well not really but then again an author is always happy when they can cause emotions.)  
> my twitter is @zeitwaechterin you can follow me there if you want to.


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